The SPYING game

ANNA MAXWELL MARTIN on a true-life Cold War thriller

- CAREN CLARK

A SPY AMONG FRIENDS
NEW SUNDAY, 9PM, ITV1
DRAMA (BOX SET, ITVX)

When British agent Kim Philby defected to Moscow in 1963, the intelligence services were left reeling from the discovery that he had spent three decades secretly working as a spy for the USSR.

Now, ITVI's six-part thriller A Spy among Friends, based on Ben Macintyre's 2014 non-fiction book of the same name, looks at the far-reaching impact that Philby's treachery had at a critical point in the Cold War, and the repercussions experienced by his friend and MI6 colleague Nicholas Elliott (Homeland's Damian Lewis).

The series explores how, after the defection, the KGB quizzes Philby (Mare of Easttown's Guy Pearce) to test his loyalty.

A troubled Nicholas, meanwhile, is questioned by formidable (fictional) MI5 debriefer Lily Thomas (Line of Duty star Anna Maxwell Martin) to establish whether he is also a traitor, and to unravel the complex web of lies and fears over who can be trusted.

Here, Anna, 46, gives us her take on the drama...

Did you know much about the story beforehand?

A bit. I know a member of the Philby family. And I have all of Ben's books, which my dear late husband [film director Roger Michell] had read because he was obsessed with spying and that kind of thing. After I got the part, I delved into them.

What do you make of the friendship between Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby?

It's about love and devotion. What's a lovely counterpoint to the sadness of it is that the bonhomie and the social side of their lives is huge; they share everything. For that to then be shattered is destroying and embarrassing. You see the devastating impact.

Elliott's wife, Elizabeth [played by Hotel Portofino's Lucy Akhurst], tries to stop him from feeling the burn of humiliation. Lily challenges him but Elizabeth is coddling him and it's heartbreaking.